The present invention relates to electronic price label (EPL) systems used in transaction establishments, and more specifically to an apparatus for grouping electronic price labels.
EPL systems typically include a plurality of EPLs for each merchandise item in a store. EPLs typically display the price of corresponding merchandise items on store shelves and are typically attached to a rail along the leading edge of the shelves. A store may contain thousands of EPLs to display the prices of the merchandise items. The EPLs are coupled to a central server from where information about the EPLs is typically maintained in an EPL data file. Price information displayed by the EPLs is obtained from the PLU file.
EPLs today may be wired or wireless. Wireless EPLs may employ infrared or radio frequency transmitters to transmit acknowledgment signals acknowledging receipt of messages and to relay acknowledgment signals from other EPLs to receiving devices coupled to a main EPL computer.
Current shelf mounting arrangements for EPLs work well in a typical store environment. However, they are not well-suited for displaying price information on a family of products or a plurality of styles associated with a single product. They are also not well-suited for promoting items located on end-aisles, walls, and other promotional structures besides standard store shelving. Mass merchants, including department store retailers desire more flexibility in mounting EPLs to better promote their products.
Therefore, it would be desirable to group EPLs in containers, such as cassettes. It would also be desirable to provide a method of managing the groups.